Press release

Mount
St. Mary's Hospital has received the American Heart Association/American Stroke
Association's Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement
Award. The award recognizes Mount St. Mary's commitment and success in
implementing excellent care for stroke patients, according to evidence-based
guidelines. Mount St. Mary's is a state-designated stroke center.

To
receive the award, Mount St. Mary's achieved adherence to all Get With The
Guidelines-Stroke quality achievement indicators for two or more consecutive
12-month intervals, and met compliance with six of 10 Get With The
Guidelines-Stroke quality measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure
quality of care. These measures include
aggressive use of medications to reduce the potential for blood clots, such as
antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis,
as well as cholesterol-reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at
reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

"With
a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Gold
Plus Quality Achievement Award demonstrates Mount St. Mary's commitment to
being one of the top hospitals in the country for providing aggressive, proven
stroke care," said hospital President and CEO Judith A. Maness. "We will
continue with our focus on providing evidence-based care, i.e., care that has
been shown in scientific literature to quickly and efficiently treat stroke patients
with proven protocols."

Maness
credited the leadership of Dr. Gregory Sambuchi, chief of neurology and
director of the hospital's stroke care program, and experienced former critical
care nurses Rosanne Schiavi and Linda Stevens for leading the hospital's
efforts.

"Mount
St. Mary's is to be commended for its commitment to implementing standards of
care and protocols for treating stroke patients," said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D.,
chair of the Get With The Guidelines national steering committee and director
of the TeleStroke and acute stroke services at Massachusetts General Hospital
in Boston. "The full implementation of acute care and secondary prevention
recommendations and guidelines is a critical step in saving the lives and
improving outcomes of stroke patients."

In
addition to the Get With The Guideline-Stroke award, Mount St. Mary's has also
been recognized as a recipient of the association's Target: Stroke Honor Roll,
for improving stroke care. Over the past quarter, at least 50 percent of the
hospital's eligible ischemic stroke patients have received the clot-busting
drug known as tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, within 60 minutes of arriving
at the hospital (known as "door-to-needle" time). A thrombolytic, or
clot-busting agent, tPA is the only drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration for the urgent treatment of ischemic stroke. If given
intravenously in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA
has been shown to significantly reverse the effects of stroke and reduce
permanent disability.

Get
With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the "teachable moment," the time soon after a
patient has had a stroke, when they are most likely to listen to and follow
their health care professionals' guidance. Studies demonstrate that patients
who are taught how to manage their risk factors while still in the hospital
reduce their risk of a second heart attack or stroke.

Through
Get With The Guidelines-Stroke, customized patient education materials are made
available at the point of discharge, based on patients' individual risk
profiles. The take-away materials are written in an easy-to-understand format
and are available in English and Spanish. In addition, the Get With The
Guidelines patient management tool gives health care providers access to
up-to-date cardiovascular and stroke science at the point of care.

According
to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is one of
the leading causes of death and serious, long-term disability in the U.S. On
average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke
every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each
year.

Mount
St. Mary's Hospital and Health Center, a member of Ascension Health, is a
175-bed community hospital in Lewiston. Mount St. Mary's team of health care
professionals includes 1,250 employees, more than 200 physicians and 250
volunteers, working with the latest technology, the most current programming,
and the very best of care. Other facilities include the 250-bed Our Lady of
Peace Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Residence, the Center for Sports Medicine
and Rehabilitation, and the Neighborhood Health Center.